The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-09-29
The Cotton Plant.

The Cotton Plant.
The cotton plant is child of the sun.
Its natural habitation is in the tropical
regions of Asia, Africa and America, but
it has been acclimated and cultivated as
far north as the thirty sixth degree of
latitude. Its cultivation covers very
large portion of our globe. In the east.
ern hemisphere its range of cultivation
extends from southern Europe to the
north to the Cape of Good Hope on the
south; in the western hemisphere from
Virginia to southern Brazil. thas been
most successfully cultivated, however,
between the thirtieth and thirty.ffth de.
grees north latitude. Humboldt found it
growing in the Andes at an elevation of
5000 feet, and in Mexico at $500 feet.
Boyle reports it cultivated at an elevation
of 1000 feet in the Himalaya. Such
elevations, however, are not favorable to
its best development. Botanically cot
ton belongs to the natural order of NAL.
vace, genus gossypium. Botanists differ
as to its proper classification into species;
some enumerating as many as ten species,
others seven, and others only three, as
necessary to clear discrimination between
the distinctive characteristics recoguiza.
BILE, after making dus al ,wances for
differences resulting from soil and eli.
matte influences.
The history of the cotton plant ante.
dates in its beginning the commercial
annals of the human family. India
seems to have been the most ancient cot
ton growing country. For five centuries
before the Christian era her inhabitants
we're clothed in cotton goods of domestic
manufacture from the fiber grown upon
her own soil by her own crude methods.
Notwithstanding the proximity of
China to India, it was not until the
Eleventh century that the cotton plant
became an object of common culture in
China. The first mention made of cot.
ton in the records was 200 years before
the Christian era. From that time down
to the Seventh century tits mentioned
not as an object of industry, but one Of
interest and curiosity; an occupant of
the flower garden, the beauty of its
flowers being celebrated in poetry. In
the Eleventh century field culture of
cotton commenced in China, but owing
to the opposition of the people especially
those engaged in growing and manufac-
turing wool and fax, it was not until
1868 that the cultivation and manufac.
ture of cotton were we'll established.
Central and South America and the
West Indies grew and manufactured
cotton long before their discovery by
Columbus, who found the plant under
cultivation, and the people using fabrics
made from the staple. at the conquest
of Mexico by Cortes, in 1919, he found
that the clothing of the Mexicans con.
sisted principally of cotton goods; the
natives of Yucatan presented him with
cotton garments and cloths for coverings
for his huts, while Montezuma presented
him with curtains, coverlets and robes
of cotton, fine as silk, of rich and various
dyes, interviewer with feather work, that
rivaled thu delicacy of painting"
Egypt seems not to have either cult.
waited cotton or used its fabrics at very
early date, since the cloths in which
mummies were enyeloped were of fax
instead of cotton. Indeed it appears
that those nations which were early cele.
brated for their manufacture of fine linen
were slow to substitute the cotton for the
fax.
Spain was the first of the European
States to grow cotton. Itwas introduced
there by the Moors in the Tenth century.
The first cotton was planted in the
United States in 1921. "Carroll's His.
torical Collections of South Carolina"
mentions the growth Of the cotton plant
in that province in 1866. In 1876 it
was planted in gardens in Talbot county,
Maryland, latitude 80 north. At the
commencement of the Revolutionary
! war Gen. Delegall was said to have had
thirty acres planted in cotton near
Savannah, Ga. 1t is statad that in 1748,
among the exports of Charleston, s. G.,
were seven bags of cotton wool, valued at
s3 lis. and Sd. bag. Another small
shipment was made in 1854, and in ITO
three more, amounting to ten bales. In
1884 eight bales skipped to England
we're seized on the ground that SO much
cotton could not be produced in the
United States.
The first Sea Island cotton was grown
on the coast of Georgia in 1876, and its
expectation commenced in 1888, by
Alexander Bissel, of st. Simons Island.
In 1871 the cotton crop of the United
States was 100000 pounds, of which
three.fourths was grown in South Caro-.
lima and one.fourth in Georgia, ten years
later, 1901, 48.OOo,O0OO pounds were pro.
duced-2O,O 100000 pounds of which was
exported.-Prof. j. S. Neamaan.
Causes Of Sudden Death.